1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to aircrafts, and more specifically, to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system and method of use.
2. Description of Related Art
Every year there are thousands of swimmers and water sports participants drowned in the world. Traditionally the swimming places are monitored by human lifeguards. They also serve as rescuers whenever a swimmer is in trouble. US National Life Saving Statistics shows that in 2014, there were 242 million attendances in beach, and there were 52,627 rescues and 4 million preventive actions. There were 60 drowning deaths. Worldwide these numbers are substantially higher.
A successful rescue by a human lifeguard relies on first of all, discovering the SID, secondly the time it takes for the lifeguard to get close to the SID, and lastly, it depends on the skill of the life guard. Each step is sequentially dependent, and each step is inferior to a drone lifeguard. For instance, discovering is typically by human's eyesight compared to drone's camera and multiple detection methods. Human lifeguard has to swim to the SID at an average speed of 2 MPH compared to drone's unfettered speed up to 30-50 MPH or even higher in the future. Human lifeguard is inefficient and sometimes even put the lifeguard in harm's way. In addition, the cost of human lifeguard is one of the main reasons why oftentimes there is no human lifeguard at all in many beaches and swimming pools.
Access to the swimmer in danger (SID) is carried out by swimming. Rescuing is by connecting the SID with a floatation device or with the lifeguard. These methods are inefficient and sometimes even put the lifeguard in harm's way. In addition, the difficulties to rescue someone far away from shore is even more difficult. Another hazard is the swimming pools in residential areas which claimed many young lives over the years. The various embodiments of the present invention intend to make lifeguarding automated from monitoring, searching to rescuing.
Man-overboard (MOB) has been a problem for ships ever since the beginning of water transportation. Today some of the challenges facing the navy ships and the crews are:
Detection—Detection is typically done by one or more dedicated human lookouts. It relies on human eyeballs, which is not always reliable and available, especially during night time. It also requires training and staffing for lookout posts.
Searching—Even if an MOB incident has been detected, sometimes it is hard to locate that MOB. Typically a binocular or a helicopter would be used to locate. ‘All hands on deck’ practice reduces the capability of the ship during searching.
Rescuing—A lifeline or a floatation device is thrown at the MOB if the MOB is close to the ship. If the MOB is farther away from the ship, the ship has to sail back and to be steered toward to the MOB, which is dangerous and may not be practical in battlefield. The MOB is hard to identify at sea. A helicopter sometime is dispatched to carry out the mission. But that diverts the helicopter's other objectives and also poses danger to the rescue crews on the helicopter.
Dangers facing the MOB—The time element is critical in saving the MOB. Drowning could happen within minutes if the MOB has no lifejacket. Hypothermia could kick in 20 minutes after staying in seawater.
Drills—MOB drilling is a routine drill, which requires all hands on deck. This is a huge cost and burden.
Existing projectors could project images onto a surface for human viewers to see. However, the object that the surface belongs to needs to be supported by a structure or needs to be rigid so its weight could be borne. It restricts the availability of such surface. In addition, a projector has to be supported by another structure as well, such as a desk top or a tripod. In some scenarios, people need to view videos or images without being restricted by the needs for a structure to support the weight of the screen or the projection source. There has been hardly possible for people to view a movie or an advertisement commercial anywhere they want. A fixed screen attached to a structure that ultimately is supported by the ground is needed. In emergency response, such as an earth quake, sometimes the only reliable broadcasting tool is radio, which lacks video capability.
Moving an object to a target location is a common task. But sometimes the target location is hard to reach by conventional means. Machinery could be too expensive or inconvenient for the circumstance.
One example is for a sea going vessel to send an object to another vessel or to a dock. At the same time the vessel must keep a safe distance from the another vessel to avoid collision. Traditionally sending an object over is done by throwing a rope or cable by a crewmember from the vessel. The practice has been like that for thousands of years, which has the problem of limited range and accuracy inherent with a human throw.
Another example is a person being stranded in a tall building in a fire breakout. Sometimes it is hard to reach that person by ladder or a helicopter. There are very few other rescuing options.
Drones are great in flying to a desired target location, but the payload of a commercial drone like a quadcopter is limited, typically not exceeding ten pounds, which is not sufficient for moving an object or a cable over that weight limit.
Picking up dog waste or trash in streets could be a headache. Many devices have been designed to that end, but they are not automated. Their usefulness is therefore limited. More generally, there are situations some objects need to be manipulated but the location of the object is hard to reach, such as putting nails on roofs.
Airborne object has the risk of falling down on ground which would damage property or injure people. This is especially problematic for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Some attempts were made to mitigate the risk. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,471,160 presented a solution to put a parachute on the UAV when there is a falling risk. However, the design only partially addressed the problem of speed reduction but not the impact mitigation. Some moving parts such as the motor blades might be still a hazard to people even the parachute has been deployed. In addition, there is a certain height requirements for deploying the parachute.
Accordingly, although great strides have been made in the area of UAV technology, many improvements remain.